Welcome!
CopperClock is Letty Limbach and Sarah Kate Moore; we are located in Seattle, WA. We strives to create dynamic, vibrant and mischievous tribal fusion that draws on many forms of world dance.
Below, you'll find our blog where we'll be discussing creativity, choreography, and all things bellydance (plus anything else that might strike our fancies.)
“Non-Kinetic” Training
September 02nd, 2010
Most of the dancers I know invest a lot of time in what I think of as “dance downtime.” This is the time we spend doing dance-related things as opposed to actual dancing. I find it helpful to distinguish between these categories because it helps keep me honest. If I’ve spent the day watching dance performances on YouTube and planning gigs with Letty, I may feel that the day has been very productive—and it probably has been!—but I still need to balance out that time with technique training and choreography.
Because I am your typical type-A personality given to hyper-organization, I tend to think of my “dance time” as divided into four categories:
- choreography
- rehearsal
- “kinetic” training (which can be subdivided into 1) technique training, 2) non-dance movement training and 3) theatricality training)
- “non-kinetic” training (dance downtime)
First ever workshop with CopperClock @ Skin Deep Dance Studios in Seattle!
July 30th, 2010
Hi Everyone!
SK and I are getting super excited to teach our first ever workshop Saturday, August 7th, 11:45am – 2pm at Skin Deep Dance Studio!
I’m going to be teaching some awesome possum drills the first part of the workshop to help you cultivate powerful fusion movements. For the second part, SK is going to pull out some of her tango magic and show y’all some lovely steps to incorporate into your dancing. At the end, we’ll pull everything together in a leetle combo that you can use for drilling or performance! 
We always like a good hard workout, so bring a yoga mat and water bottle. (Yoga mats are available at the studio if you don’t have one.)
So, to summarize the knitty-gritty:
What: Super amazing workshop of awesome!
When: Saturday, August 7th from 11:45am – 2:00pm
Where: Skin Deep Dance Studios (2524 16th Ave S #311, Seattle WA)
How much: $25 if you register before Aug 1st, $35 after
So after all this awesome (only $25 for a two hour workshop? yeah, for realsies…), you’re probably wondering how you can sign up. Well, you can find all the info and register here: http://www.skindeepdancestudios.com/workshops.html
Hope to see you there!
~lettylou
Raqs Macabre @ The Morgue & MedFest!
July 16th, 2010
Helloooo out there!
So, SK and I have been feverishly getting ready for the next couple days! Two days, two performances, one new number!
A few days ago, I posted the following on our facebook: “What’s that you say? Punk cancan bellydance fusion = too much? Only if by too much you mean too awesome.” Now’s your chance to come out and judge for yer scurvy selves!
Tonight, Friday, July 16th:
Raqs Macabre
@ The Morgue
5901 Airport Way S
Seattle, WA
Show starts at 9 and we’re first on the lineup! There’s a lot of incredible talent at this show, so don’t miss out: Medea, Twilight, Katana, Raqs Steady Eddie, Miss J9 Fierce & Xtina, Katrina Outcast, Lady Corrine, & Koreshakti (from Spokane!)
Saturday, July 17th
MedFest!
Indoor Stage
2700 California Ave SW
West Seattle, WA
CopperClock will be the first to take the indoor stage at 10:52am (on the dot!) A super fun festival to check out! Performances on two stages all day Saturday and Sunday, plus workshops, plus some seriously wicked vending. Be there or be square, friends. 
Embracing Novicedom
July 07th, 2010
This past spring, I took an introductory modern dance class at my university. It was a great class, but also very, very humbling. I went in thinking I had a head start—after all, I’m a dancer already!—only to discover that in fact my five years of dance training didn’t do very much to make me a competent beginning modern dancer. Sure, some things carry over—mostly having to do with posture and general ease of movement (my theory is that those things may both be linked more closely with being comfortable in your body and the dance space than with number of years of previous training)—but both the vocabulary and the technique were by and large absolutely new.
Northwest Folklife Festival
May 28th, 2010
Hello Folks!
Well, after much prep and lead-up, it’s finally time for CopperClock to perform at the Northwest Folklife Festival‘s Tribal/Fusion Showcase hosted by the wonderous Helenwheels! Get ready for an amazing line-up, folks, cause you’ll be hit with the likes of Darshan from NYC, Kami Liddle of BDSS, and the legendary Gypsy Caravan. You’ll also have the pleasure of witnessing the local/regional talents of Ginger Blue, Troupe Hipnotica, Skin Deep, The Bijou Project, and Elizabeth Dennis! And it’s totally, 100% FREE!!
Here be the nitty-gritty details:
What: Tribal/Fusion Showcase at Nothwest Folklife Festival
Where: International Dance Stage at the Exhibition Hall (Seattle Center)
When: Saturday, May 29th, 7:00 – 10:00 pm
Hope to see you all there
~lettylou
Seattle Steampunk Film Festival – Performance this weekend!
May 07th, 2010
Just wanted to write a little posty about CopperClock’s upcoming performance (tomorrow!) at the Seattle Steampunk Film Festival. You can find more information here.
The festival is to raise funds to fix the Museum of History and Industry’s beautiful 1913 clock. The clock was vandalized only a year after it was donated to the MOHAI in 2008. CopperClock dancing to raise fund to fix a vintage clock! Could it get any better than that? Oh wait, yes it could…
The festival will feature the 1959 version of Journey to the Center of the Earth and the 1960 version of the Time Machine, in addition to shorts from the League of Steam! The first film starts at 6:00pm. Once the first film is over, there will be an interlude of live performances—Professor Payne and His Flea Circus and CopperClock (of course!)—and a silent auction. Then the films start up again. Overall, it should be a rip-roarin’ good time Plus, it will be our longest set yet!
Steampunk Film Festival
Museum of History & Industry
Doors at 5:30pm/Film starts at 6:00pm
Tickets: $9
Hope to see you there
Cues & Tattoos 2010
April 20th, 2010
As I write this, I am at 34,000 feet, listening to Tori Amos, and staring out my window at miles and miles of mountain ranges. I’m on my way home from Denver, where I attended the Association of Writing Programs conference. This is basically a convention where writers go to network, buy more books than they can afford, stalk well-known poets, size each other up (“Oh, you got your MFA from [insert name of university]? Well, my book’s coming out from [insert name of small press]”) and pitch their manuscripts to anyone that looks like s/he might be famous and/or influential. I worked the table for Wave Books (the awesome poetry press where I intern). I also saw a lot of gorgeous books—print media is not dead!—went to a couple of readings, got some sort of altitude-related malaise, and had many drinks with William, my poet-friend Most Likely to Get His Book Published First.
But I digress. The reason I bring up AWP is that I have learned something this weekend—two conventions in two weeks is one convention too many. I had barely recovered from Cues and Tattoos two weekends ago before getting on a plane Denverbound. Am I exhausted? Yes. Was C&T worth it? Yes. I took some great workshops, saw a great show, participated in a great show, and got to spend some time with my favorite Orlandoids, Tammy and Mary of Yip Podcast. Read more
C&T Workshops: Flamenco with Rina Orellana Rall
April 09th, 2010
I sat down for my lunch today, yellow writing pad and fresh pen in hand, with the intention of writing a review of all of the various awesomeness that went down at Cues & Tattoos from March 27th to March 29th in Seattle. But when I got to reviewing the workshops I took, I found, at least with this workshop, that I was writing enough for a blog post in and of itself. I decided to just roll with it and come back to a more comprehensive review a scosh later…
I first saw Rina Orellana Rall perform flamenco in Friday’s Instructor Showcase. She was incredible. Her movements were strong and her entire body was expressive. Overall, her stage presence was very intense and captivating (if you want an amazing example of truly filling a space with your presence and commanding the attention of everyone in the audience, look no further, friends). Thus, it came as a surprise when I went to the workshop only to find that, in spite of the way she appeared on stage, she is a very small person, smaller even, than SK (hey, SK, no offense, ya?) However, even with everyone else in the class towering over her physically, Rina filled the room just as she had the stage. I do believe the term “powerhouse” would be in appropriate use here.
Cues & Tattoos!
March 25th, 2010
You may have noticed a distinct lack of blog post this week…This is due to the fact that Sarah Kate and I are supa busy getting ready for the amazing, incredible, awesome-possum Cues & Tattoos Bellydance Festival this weekend.
Cues & Tattoos is the only ATS/ITS-focused bellydance festival in the United States (eeps, correct me if I’m wrong…) Thus, some extremely inspirational instructors are going to be gracing us attendees with their respective glorious presences-including Carolina Nericcio, the founder of ATS!
Sarah Kate and I will be taking a full weekend of workshops and performing in the participant’s showcase, Serpent’s Muse, on Saturday night. If you’d like to come check us out, the Serpent’s Muse runs from 6:30 to 10:15 (ish) and we’ll be going on in the second half of the show, which starts at 8:25. The showcase is located in the Seattle Center Pavilion, a separate building across from the Center House. The building is marked #38 on the map at: http://www.seattlecenter.com/information/map.asp.
Hope to see you there!
~lettylou
Learning Choreography
March 15th, 2010
Having just returned from an intense (and productive!) rehearsal with Letty, I decided the time was right to talk about choreography—specifically, about learning someone else’s choreography and remembering it.
First of all, there’s something you should know about me: I am terrible at learning choreography. It is just one of those things—like learning languages—that I adore but at which I am woefully bereft of natural talent. There are lots of lucky people that have great memories for choreography and conjugating irregular French verbs, but I am not one of those people. So learning Letty’s new choreography1 these past couple of weeks has been a major challenge for me. Needless to say, I’ve been thinking about ways to lock those combinations into my brain.
Read more